Abdelkader El-Janabi, 55, and 41-year-old Alex Wilson-Fletcher deny two charges of rape and two charges of sexual assault alleged to have taken place on June 2

Two men accused of raping a 14-year-old boy in the toilets at Debenhams have protested their innocence.

Abdelkader El-Janabi, 55, is alleged to have targeted a boy using urinals at Manchester’s Arndale Centre and coerced him into coming with him to the department store, where he attacked him with the ‘encouragement’ of another man, 41-year-old Alex Wilson-Fletcher.

Both men deny two charges of rape and two charges of sexual assault alleged to have taken place on June 2.

Giving evidence in his defence at Manchester Crown Court, Mr El-Janabi told the jury that he was ‘bed-ridden’ over that period, and that the suspect shown in CCTV images was not him.

Mr El-Janabi, of Artillery Court, Ardwick, told the jury that he served in the Iraqi army as a military intelligence officer and fought in the Iran-Iraq war in 1980.

He said he also fought in the Gulf War of the early 90s, before being captured by the Americans and ‘tortured with a small stick’, causing lasting injury to both knees.

Mr El-Janabi, who settled in the UK 11 years ago, said the pain in his knees was ‘extremely bad’ at the end of May and first half of June.

He said:?“I was bedridden for nearly three weeks.”

Asked by his lawyer, Ronan Maguire, if he would have been able to go into town on June 2, when the attack is alleged to have happened, Mr El-Janabi told court: “No way.”

The court has been told that the male toilets on the third floor of Debenhams are known for ‘homosexual activity’.

Mr El-Janabi said he had been to Debenhams only once in December 2010. He denied allegations put to him by Neil Fryman, prosecuting, that he had been seen ‘hanging around’ the toilets on numerous occasions by staff, and had on one occasion been ‘escorted off the premises’.

“Why are you saying that? I went there as a customer, I bought two shirts and that’s it,” he replied.

Mr Wilson-Fletcher is alleged to have followed Mr El-Janabi and the victim from the toilets in the Arndale to the department store, where he groped the boy before watching his co-defendant attack him.

The defendant told the court he had ‘no recollection what happened that day’, but denied any involvement in an attack.

He said that diabetes made him use the toilet more often.

He said he had the ‘presumption’ that he had been out shopping and gone to the toilet, leaving the Arndale and going to Debenhams, as CCTV allegedly shows, in search of a free cubicle.

Mr Wilson-Fletcher said if he saw an intimate encounter in the toilet he would leave. He went on to say he had seen ‘homosexual behaviour’ in the toilets at Debenhams a ‘handful’ of times over the last 15 years.

Asked if he had been ‘involved in any way’ in the alleged attack by his barrister, Adrian Farrow, Mr Wilson-Fletcher replied, ‘I was not’.

Our newspapers include the flagship Manchester Evening News - Britain's largest circulating
regional daily with up to 130,485 copies - as well as 20 local weekly titles across Greater
Manchester, Cheshire and Lancashire.

Free morning newspaper, The Metro, published every weekday, is also part of our portfolio,
delivering more than 200,000 readers in Greater Manchester.

Greater Manchester Business Week is the region’s number one provider of business news andfeatures, targeting a bespoke business audience with 12,687 copies every Thursday.

Every month, M.E.N. Media’s print products reach 2.2 million adults, spanning from Accrington
in the north to Macclesfield in the south.